What were they Thinking!?

What could our local governing
agencies expect to accomplish by punishing and persecuting the
unfortunate folks who are merely attempting to survive by living
within their means. The reference made, of course, to the
recently created ordinances by cities and counties throughout the
country making it a crime for camping in public as termed
by Sonoma County. However it is worded, it still skirts around
the former abolishment of vagrancy laws and literallyviolates our Civil Liberties.

In April, 2006 the U.S.
9th District Appeals Court ruled that making it a
crime to be homeless by charging them with a crime is in violation of the 8th Amendment. The previous link provides the
complete transcript in PDF. Quoted pertinent excerptsof that transcript - are in the
following:

The City could not expressly criminalize the status of
homelessness by making it a crime to
be homeless without violating the Eighth Amendment, nor
can it criminalize acts that are an
integral aspect of that status. Because there is
substantial and undisputed evidence that the
number of homeless persons in Los Angeles far exceeds the
number of available shelter beds at
all times, including on the nights of their arrest or
citation, Los Angeles has encroached
upon Appellants' Eighth Amendment protections by
criminalizing the unavoidable act of sitting,
lying or sleeping at night while being involuntarily
homeless.

Jones argues that LAMC ss 41.18(d) makes criminal what
biology and circumstance make
necessary, that is, sitting, lying, and sleeping on the
streets. He maintains that the gap
between the number of homeless persons in Los Angeles,
and the number of available shelter beds,
leaves thousands without shelter every night. Jones
claims that some 42,000 people are homeless
each night in the City of Los Angeles, with approximately
11,000 living in the Skid Row area.
The number of homeless persons exceeds the number of
available shelter beds. Of the 11,000 on
Skid Row, approximately 7,000 sleep in a single room
occupancy facility and 2,000 stay in
emergency shelter facilities.
- (See id.)

- id. at 568 n.31(Fortas, J., dissenting); the Eighth Amendment
prohibits the City from punishing involuntary
sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks
that is an unavoidable consequence of being
human and homeless without shelter in the City
of Los Angeles.

[14]We do not suggest that Los Angeles adopt any
particular social policy, plan, or law to
care for the homeless. See Johnson v. City of Dallas, 860
F. Supp. 344, 350-51 (N.D. Tex.1994),
rev'd on standing grounds, 61 F.3d 442 (5th Cir. 1995).
We do not desire to encroach on the
legislative and executive functions reserved to the City
Council and the Mayor of Los Angeles.
There is obviously a "homeless problem" in the City of
Los Angeles, which the City is free to
address in any way that it sees fit, consistent with the
constitutional principles we have
articulated.

That being an impossibility, by criminalizing sitting, lying, and sleeping, the City is in fact criminalizing Appellants' status as homeless
individuals. Similarly, applying Robinson and Powell, courts have found statutes
criminalizing the status of vagrancy to be unconstitutional. For example, Goldman v. Knecht declared unconstitutional a Colorado statute making it a crime for "'[a]ny person able to work and support himself'" to "'be found loitering or strolling about, frequenting public places,...begging or leading an idle, immoral or profligate course of life, or not having
any visible means of support.'" 295 F. Supp. 897, 899 n.2, 908 (D. Colo. 1969) (three-judge court); see also Wheeler v.
Goodman, 306 F. Supp. 58, 59 n.1, 62, 66 (W.D.N.C. 1969)
(three judge court) (striking down as unconstitutional under Robinson a statute making it a crime to, inter alia, be able to work but have no property or "'visible and known means'" of earning a livelihood), vacated on other grounds, 401 U.S. 987 (1971).

Protection against deprivations of life, liberty and
property without due process is,
of course, the role of the Fourteenth Amendment, not the
Eighth. The majority's analysis
of the substantive component of the Eighth Amendment
blurs the two. However, the Eighth
Amendment does not afford due process protection when a
Fourteenth Amendment claim proves
unavailing.

The defense encompasses the very difficulties that Jones posits here: sleeping on the streets because alternatives were inadequate and economic forces were primarily to blame for his predicament. Id. at 390. Jones argues that he and other
homeless people are not willingor able to pursue such a defense because the costs of pleading guilty are so low and the risks and challenges of pleading innocent are substantial.

Complete transcript of

U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals

at:

By our decision,we in no way dictate to the City that it must provide sufficient shelter for the homeless, or allow anyone who wishes to sit, lie, or sleep on the streets of Los Angeles at any time and at any place within the City. All we hold is that,so long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in Los Angeles than the number of available beds, the City may not enforce section 41.18(d) at all times and places throughout the City against homeless individuals for involuntarily sitting, lying, and sleeping in public.

Some communities. . . (L.A.,Sonoma County and S.F. included)have continued to enforce thisillegal law. They are therefore (apparently),if not stupid then - are consciously beingsoooO arrogantto be so counterproductive, as to believe they are above theFederal Law - and are continuing toviolateCivil Rightsin this manner!!?

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